Thursday, January 19, 2012

Dweezil's Day Out

Parents with a lot of kids plan activities to give each child some special individual time; folks like us who run multi-pet households do the same. Yesterday was Little Pete's turn for a walk along the Rio Grande, and today was a special outing for Dweezil. *

First we went to PetSmart to get a collar, tag, and a harness to replace the Dreaded Red Garment that we use with all our new pups to keep them from backing out of a collar when learning to walk nicely on a leash. Here is Dweezil meeting a talkative bird, and explaining to her that he doesn't always wear this ugly red thing.

And here is Dweezil, discussing wardrobe misfortunes with another new friend. Excuse the photos, I am just learning how to use my iPhone as a camera.

Once we had Dweezil properly outfitted, we discovered that we didn't have the right tool in the car to put the new identification tag onto the new collar. You know, the ID tag with his name on one side and our address and cell phone number on the other side. Oh, well, we'd put it on at home [cue the ominous organ music here], right after we took little Dweez out for a nice walk in the desert [continue with the foreboding music here] using the new handsome harness and the new unfamiliar retractable leash.

Little dog, big desert

I suppose with all this ominous music swirling around in the background (use your imagination), you are thinking that we are doing several really, really dumb things all at the same time. I know, I can hear your thoughts:

1) Omg, they are taking a little pup out on his inaugural walk with an unfamiliar retractable leash!
2) Omg, they are leaving the brand new ID tag in the car. In the car!!! What good will it do there?
3) What's wrong with these people?

You would also be cursing us even further if you knew that we were far from home (for a little pup) in totally unfamiliar territory, but not too far from a highway and a bunch of busy four lane roads.

Okay, okay, I know we were beyond dumb. And you know what happened:

The retractable leash slipped out of Beez's hand and the handle loudly clunked to the ground behind little Dweezil, who (up until that moment) was behaving perfectly well and sniffing some coyote scat by a mesquite bush.

Hearing something big smack the ground behind him just when he was thinking about coyotes, Dweezil panicked and ran, and the horrible handle thing chased him, making him run all the faster.

Beez chased Dweezil and they disappeared over the hill and toward all that traffic.

Where's the pup?

By the time I neared the big road, dreading the worst, I could see that Beez had taken the car to try to follow the panicky little pup who was dragging the thing that he thought was chasing him.

Just out of sight, a couple of parking lots over and still on our side of the big, traffic-filled road (lucky for everyone), an exhausted Dweezil sat down to think things over. A kind man grabbed the leash and left Dweezil tied to his car while dashing inside his workplace to grab his phone. Lucky for us, Dweezil was outside where Beez could see him when driving by.

All were reunited safely, and no one had to explain to the nice man when thanking him that his phone wouldn't have helped anyway because the tag with the phone number was in the bag in the car and not on the pup's collar where it should have been.

Dweezil is here with us at home now, taking a nap in the sun (wearing his new collar and ID tag), while Beez and I think really hard about how smart people (well, we used to think we were fairly smart) can do really, really dumb things and how everything can go badly wrong in the wink of an eye. And how things could have been much, much worse, except for the kindness and quick thinking of a stranger.

oh my word. what a story. you've been having some exciting times with dogs. so glad this close call turned out with everyone safe and sound at home. you tell a funny story. Happy weekend to you Clairz.

About Me

Who knew that retirement would be so much fun? I loved working with kids and books and technology as a school librarian, but now I love having time to get together with friends, and to enjoy walking, going to the gym, taking photos, reading, researching, blogging, knitting, and gardening.